Share your DIY scenery tips.

[silentman]

I was thinking as I was working on some DIY RR ties that I am making out of weather stripping from an article in CTT not long ago, that a thread for thrifty DIY could be very beneficial and a great way to share some super cool ideas.  Just write a description and post a picture. I was leaning more towards the scenery area but who knows. I know there are alot of talented folks out there with great ideas that are fun and not to damaging on the old wallet. Thanks a bunch!!!

[Buckeye Riveter]

Description: DIY BRIDGE  http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/t/243291.aspx?page=1  

Photo:

[cnw1995]

Great idea for a thread. I love using found objects for the layout. I use broken roof shingles that I am able to obtain from a local hardware store for nothing as macadamized roads and also as cinders underlying branchline track.

I have used an old grey-coloured towel that I've cut into strips and twisted around a piece of coat-hanger wire to represent smoke coming out of a smokestack or an aeroplane engine. 

I've coloured the viewable side of tubular track with a brown paint-stick marker to represent rusty or more accurately weathered track.

[silentman]

I took my wife to an appointment the other week and stumbled upon this bush outside the office, not sure what it is. Snapped a few off, took home, dried them out. Little hairspray some gound foam and a pretty okay tree for next to nothing. Tree on the left is with no ground foam, would be pretty cool as is for a  just died look in time for fall.

[Waynestrains]

I just recently made six or seven of these "trees", wish I knew what kind of plant they are. I found them on a walk and drug some home. I took one extra step with mine, I sprayed the tops with green paint before finishing them like you did. I agree with you they came out fine.  Wayne

[Frank-53]

An HO tank car, with or without trucks and beat up can usually be found in a junk bin for a buck and serves as above ground storage. Dessicant containers from Aspirin bottles make excellent drums:

[Frank-53]

Apply some distressing to some lengths of tubular track and stack them, and some use for extra trucks

[silentman]

Here is my first attempt at weathering a structure. I used the advice in the Feb 2015 CTT article by Mr. Brennan for the brick work and Mr. Knautz provided inspiration from his article in the Oct. 2014 CTT issue for building the steps. Thanks gentleman!!

[RRCharlie]

When I was a teenager (back in the 1950's!!!), I was developing a farm area and used coffee grounds for a freshly plowed field. That layout is long gone so I can't post a picture.

[Penny Trains]

Here's a way to make sturdy and flexible trees I started experimenting with a couple of months ago.  I used 26 gauge floral wire, a high temp hot glue gun and mini glue sticks, acrylic craft paints and Woodland Scenics clump foliage.  I also made a simple jig from thick sheet styrene and used a medicine bottle lid as a temporary base for the tree.

I start by spooling out the wire on my jig, note the small notch in the end to get the wire started:

Generally I stick with 8 loops per level but I'm not slavish about it.  Inconsistency is more natural and variety is the only thing that's normal in nature.  The only real rule of thumb is the more wire you add the harder it will be to twist.  30 loops seems to be a good maximum for me.

Once it's all spooled out, I remove it from the jig.  Then I start twisting.  For this tree I went with 3 levels of branches.  Starting from the bottom, I separated the lowest (smallest) level of loops into 2 groups of four.  Then using 2 pairs of needlenose pliers I twisted the lowest third of the trunk leaving about half of the length of the loops sticking out to the sides.  Then I repeated the procedure going up the trunk until I had something like this:

At this point I trimmed off the bottom of the trunk with side cutters.

From here it's time to twist up the branches.

Four loops become two and two become branch tips.

A note about hot glue.  It's HOT!  380 degrees to be exact!  Be careful!

Now the tree will go from naked armature to surprisingly realistic tree trunk.

Starting from the top of the tree, I slowly and methodically spread the glue on the underside of the branches first:

Patience is the order of the day here.  Hot glue goes on crystal clear and fogs as it cools.  So it will take a few minutes after application before you have a real idea of just where you applied it.  With a bit of practice, I learned how to squeeze the trigger so just a tiny bit of glue would dispense at a time.  That way I was able to spread a very thin layer on the smaller branches.  But don't fret!  ALL of the glue gun's tip is a useful tool here.  If you have too much glue in one spot, just hit it with the edge of the tip and spread it out.  Remember, every time the hot tip hits the glue on the tree it adds texture, which is good!  (It's hard to mess this up!)

Here's where that bottle lid comes into play.  I bored a hole through the center and that allowed about a quarter of an inch of the wire to poke through.  More than enough for what I need but you may want longer pigtails for your trees so you can install them on your layout better.  (Disneyland is where these trees are headed and I only need a short tail for a floor layout.)  Take a close look at the red lid here:

I put 4 globs of glue (roughly semetrically) around the base of the tree to "attach" it to the lid.  Go do something else until the glue cools and the tree anchors itself.  Working down the trunk of what now looks like a frosted glass tree, I dispense the glue out onto the lid and taper it off to represent a root system.  Do this slowly.  You're working with 380 degree glue on steel which will transmit and disperse the heat to other places on the trunk and will dislodge it from the lid.

Once the entire tree is cooled off, you can glom on the paint!

And I do mean glom!  You want the paint to form a thick skin on the glue "bark".  It also covers a lot of thin areas farther out on the branches and gives some areas a more graceful look.  For this tree I used Apple Barrel Territorial Beige but any shade of light brown would work.  This is your base coat.

Now come the washes.  First up is light gray.  I used a mix of about 2 parts water to 1 part paint.

It's hard to see in this picture, but you want it to end up looking half brown/half gray.  After that dries, the 10 to 1 black wash finishes the bark:

Just let it flow!  You may end up with blackened fingers if like me you're dumb enough to hold the tree while you're painting, but it washes off easy enough!

The final step is foliation.  I like to put hot glue on the tops of the "V's" that make up the end branches and then I make a sandwich out of them with two clumps of foam (at the same time, top and bottom of the branch).  That gets the job done quickly and keeps your fingers away from the glue too.

When you're ready to "plant" your trees, pry them off your lid or whatever you used as a working base with a small screwdriver and work the roots into your terrain.

That's it.  They're simple to make, strong AND flexible and you don't have to worry about what kind of weeds you may be picking.

Becky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jwse30]

That's a beautiful way to make trees Becky!

 

My tip would be to paint cork roadbed with watered down grey latex paint before installing. My layout is meant to be toylike, so that's all the more "ballasting" I do. I would think even with ballast, the grey paint would hide spots that were missed, or allow one to use a bit less ballast .

 

Here's what Gargraves track looks like installed on it. This is one of my modules for the club I am in. Ballast doesn't seem to hold up so well on portable layouts; not many members' tables do anything more than this:

 

 

J White

 

[t8afao]

Becky, that is a Very nice tutorial,  will be a great summer project when it's blistering hot. Thanks,   Nick 

[aussteve]

I like this thread. One of the best reads I have had and I have never done scenery. Very ingenuous people and comments.

[silentman]

aussteve

I like this thread. One of the best reads I have had and I have never done scenery. Very ingenuous people and comments.

 

Finally back in business! Thought I would share a scratch built bridge I'm just about to finish for my new (much smaller ) layout along with the actual bridge i tried to simulate. Still in early stages, more to come

 

 

 

 

[Firelock76]

Can't post a picture since I don't have a digitable camera, however when I was building the layout I wanted a stone retaining wall on the backside.

I went to Lowes and found a travertine bathroom tile sheet.  Hey, I retiled a bathroom at the old house so a small section on a layout was no problem.  Stuck it to the wall, grouted same, and now I've got a nice "stone block" retaining wall that looks really real.

It should, it's travertine, it IS real!